The constitutional renewal council has to be for real this time

By Jessica Asato / @Jessica_Asato

I’m a fan of Sir Alan Sugar, but he shouldn’t have a place in our second chamber unless he’s elected to be there. Earlier this week Gordon Brown suggested that he would launch a new National Council for Democratic Renewal, but with this appointment of an unelected businessman to the House of Lords to circumvent the House of Commons, he shows that he’s not prepared to address constitutional reform boldly. There are also rumours that he plans to elevate Louise Casey, the government’s former ‘Respect Tsar’ to the Lords. Another great person to have been involved in political life, but not avoiding the crucial decisions about our legislation without democratic legitimacy. The Prime Minister yesterday confirmed that there will be further appointments made in this way, but how can he make the case for democratic renewal if he eschews democracy in the first place?

We’ll have to wait to see whether there are major structural changes to Whitehall to put democratic renewal at the heart of the government’s plan to recapture the political agenda, as reported here in the FT, but reform of the Lords has to surely feature high on the priority list. Gordon Brown has just mentioned that there will be a report from the new cabinet council for democratic renewal in a month’s time, let’s hope it doesn’t fudge the issue as we have done so many times in the past. And let’s also hope that the “public consultation” process which Brown has just announced includes the option of a citizens’ convention which Baroness Royall suggested in a recent Lords debate it might. What would be a nightmare is if the consultation takes the form of many government attempts to involve the public which, except for the exciting deliberations for the Our Health Our Care Our Say White Paper, tend to be a failure.

A lot of party members think that constitutional reform is a sidetrack because the public don’t care about the intricacies of the single transferable vote or the differences between open and closed primaries. In former days I would agree with them – we should always try to concentrate on those issues which affect the public in their day-to-day lives such as whether our schools are the best they can be or whether our healthcare is of high quality. But the expenses crisis is a reflection of a wider problem with the way in which our democracy works and we have a short window where the public may not be interested in the finer details, but could give us leave to sort out the bigger problems rather than just expenses. It could also give us dividing lines with the Tories which show that they aren’t really interested in involving the public in democratic life, they only talk about people power when it suits them.

The most important effect that a full scale programme of constitutional reform could provide us with however, is an opportunity to create a more progressive politics by putting politicians in a position where they are more in touch with their constituents, where we involve ordinary people in our selection processes and encourage non-politicians to put themselves forward, where local democracy has the chance to flourish and where political parties don’t have to spend their time courting big businesses or rich donors, but providing political education and support for party members. Gordon Brown has said that he will concentrate on big constitutional changes before, but it fell far too short of expectations. This time it’s got to be for real.